Jim Nolan’s new play, Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye, is a funny and richly entertaining, topical and provocative reflection on the Easter Rising Centenary Commemoration.
Following its world première at Garter Lane Theatre in 2016, the play tours nationwide this spring (March and April), opening in Waterford (birthplace of writer Jim Nolan) on March 20 and playing at nine venues nationwide until the 8th of April, including a two night stint at the Pavilion Theatre in Dún Laoghaire on Thursday 30th, and Friday, 31st March.
Set in a provincial newspaper office in the Irish Midlands in the run up to Easter 2016, the privately-owned Inishshannon Chronicle has just been acquired by a media conglomerate and the new brush is about to sweep clean. As the newspaper’s staff struggle to adjust to the radical changes in the company’s structure and ethos, the town it serves prepares to celebrate a tenuous connection to the Easter Rising. The revelation that this connection is not quite what it seems puts the Chronicle’s editor on a collision course with both his new bosses and the local business and political community.
Originally commissioned with the support of the Arts Office of Waterford City & County Council from Waterford playwright, Jim Nolan, this new play produced by Garter Lane Theatre delves into the underbelly of Irish small town life as the nation celebrates the centenary of the 1916 Easter Rising.
Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye plays at the Pavilion Theatre in Dún Laoghaire on Thursday 30th, and Friday, 31st March. Tickets cost €18 (concessions available) and may be reserved online.
DIRECTED by Jim Nolan
SET DESIGN by Dermot Quinn
COSTUME DESIGN by Jeannine Storan
LIGHTING DESIGN by Richard Collins
SOUND DESIGN by Rachel Corcoran
CAST Garrett Keogh / Michael Hayes / Ciaran McMahon / Deirdre Monaghan / Ema Lemon
REVIEWS
‘…Jim Nolan has an unapologetic affection for small-town life. But it never blinds him to its dangers and its faults…’ – Emer O’Kelly, Sunday Independent
‘…a meditation on the shape of the nation as it celebrates the Rising… lightly metaphorical and stealthily topical…’ – The Irish Times
‘…a genuine glimpse into what life is really like in the Irish regional newsroom…’ – Munster Express
CONTACT DETAILS
Pavilion Theatre
Marine Road
Dún Laoghaire
Co. Dublin
Tel: 01 231 2929 (box office)
All images courtesy Garter Lane Theatre
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